


Nimiedad

by serotonana



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga), Death Note: Another Note
Genre: Blood and Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Mental Health Issues, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Slow Burn, all characters are adults, gore ?? i think, my narration is very descriptive sorry guys, near is like 27 y.o bc im using the manga birth date, set in 2018, so no covid fuck yeah, the Never Complete one-shot kinda didnt happend
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29330415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serotonana/pseuds/serotonana
Summary: The books I used to rejoice over felt too normal, too trivial. Some years ago I would yearn for those concerns. To be a Victorian lady whose only responsibilities included those of ghost-hunting, fate-twisting and of course, romancing. But even after those sleepless nights wishing to change places, it seems my growing workload and lack of artistic episodes weren’t enough. Now, I had all these usual issues, nights filled with nameless corpses and Shinigami matters to entertain myself with."Ryuk, let's go catch a killer!"
Relationships: Near | Nate River/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	1. Cero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: descriptions of blood and a dead body.

It was raining that day. Heavy and cold on my flesh, wanting to hold me down in my place to avoid the things happening inside the house.

The things.

What things?

The things.

My mind didn’t dare to dance around the possibilities and the exact details of the things happening. I had yet to see it myself. It was never important, the happenings before I see it. Everything was dull and I was so sleepy. It was but a loop of happenings, happening all over again. The same result.

The happenings.

Even knowing that, my drowsy eyes wandered around the rain-blurred streets. The house had a plaque that reads something along the lines of “黒崎” but I wasn’t entirely sure. My brain was always ready to play games.

Does it even matter?

Two long and meditated steps until the door was facing me. It looked at me alarmed, and it felt warm to the touch. Ascending. The door knob in my hand was like a burning reminding of my whereabouts. Looking back on it, it’s funny. I don’t know where I am.

Where was I?

I finally open it. One of the million secrets that only my eyes had the misfortune to see. There was something about my eyes, too. Always ready, like my brain, to show me death.

I walk thought the house but I ignore every room. In all these dreams, it’s the same all over again.

A dream.

The details can change, but it doesn’t matter. No. It’s all going to end the same way every time and I have to see it happen.

It’s always, always, every damn time, the bedroom.

At that point, the stairs were all I could see. My sight went tunnel vision to the front. Never to the back. Never to the sides. My pace bringing me slowly closer to death.

And then, all I could see was red. All I could ever see was red.

Blood.

There was so much blood. All over the place. In the walls, in the floor. The furniture was moved to the sides for a better working space.

And the body. Oh, the body.

The body was in the middle of it all.

The killer was there, too.

Nails and a hammer, ready to start.

The killer had nailed the body to a wooden cross. Slow and calculated movements. But not a trace of a doubt. Like following a sketch, the killer took a bucket with a thick red liquid.

SINNER SINNER SINNER

SINNER SINNER

SINNER SINNER SINNER 

Pale fingers dropping of blood, the mysterious figure paints all over the victim’s face. A big smile and conflicting tears adorned the face of a man no longer alive to cry or laugh. Those same fingers grazed around the neck, collarbones, and arms all the way to his hands. A bloody path coming from carved eyes.

The killer took a knife, and while opening the body from the chest to the abdomen, they looked at me.

Those eyes, her calm and wicked eyes were the last thing I saw before waking up in my bed. Cold sweat all over and my breath refusing to help me. 

The room was dark, and I felt uneasy. My mind took control of my body, and when I stood up, my legs shaky and cold, I felt myself sinking faster and faster into insanity. Just like that, I fell to the bed again. My sight blurred like the streets in my dream.

My dream.

I had to write it. I was desperately to draw it.

I can’t forget it.

_Remember! Don’t pass out! You have to remember!_

My body was weak, just like that dead man. I have always been weak. So I forced it to move, and even when I fell again, I crawled in the floor, a desperate attempt to document what I had witnessed.

But the desk was so, so far away. And my arms were cramped.

_NO NO_

_NO NO NO_

_NO NO NO_

_NO!_

I have to remember.

My nails leave marks in the wood floor, like a souvenir of one of my new episodes. I went to hell and all I could bring back with me was my fucked up demeanor.

I finally made it to the desk, and my hellish notebook is waiting for me. I grab it, the pen trapped between my fingers.

I fill three pages by the time the sun is up. Vivid details I can’t forget and lots of sketches in variants of gray and black.

I lay there, in my now not-so-dark-bedroom. Sunray kissing the tip of my nose as my head falls to the hard floor. My mind is running and I can’t stop it.

Waking up after three hours of deep sleep was nothing out of the norm. My routine was like a used pencil, dullness starting to arise. I would imagine unknown faces in vivid detail, no context or explanation, and the dream ends just as it started. Once the person dies, the sound of my own beating heart would bring me back to reality and I would find myself drowning in a pool of cold sweat. But none of the physical symptoms were as overwhelming as the paranoia and fear. I had to write it, document it as clearly as possible or I would go insane. And with that, my journals were overflowing with short plots worthy of a bad book. My sketchbook full of unfamiliar faces and places. The days after that, I’d say my body is possessed by the god of art because I can’t find any other logic explanation to the uninterrupted hours of painting, inspired by my own dreams.

At first I thought it was no more than good fortune: free inspiration gifted by my imaginary muses. From the very first night I had finished a whole collection I would exhibit in my gallery. I had enough material to paint and survive. To make money. However, im always thinking about it. Because this good fortune must have an expiration date. Inspiration comes and goes and I know this very well.

Was the brain really capable of creating new faces? If that man was but a mix and match of the different people I had encountered in my life, then who was he?

_Who was I killing?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh. This is my first fanfic on AO3 and uh english is not my first language (spanish is) so constructive criticism is highly appreciated!


	2. Uno

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: descriptions of blood and a dead body.

Drips and drops.

Cold and hot sweat.

A purr so deathly it consumes my legs the same way it consumes my mind.

Tabacco

But above all the ghost-like chasing: asphyxia. The feeling of a spectral sea embracing my undying body. A spectral sea –and I was totally sure of this fact- that was to take every second left my organs had. Thoughts run free and out of control. Uncontrollable thoughts getting in my way and pushing me to a bathroom as suffocating as the oxygen contaminating my lungs.

I was dying.

Every second passing by I was dying.

More and more.

I’m suffocating, or drowning, or maybe I’m being killed, ruthlessly murdered and drifting away. I’m not sure nor there is any evidence for all these possibilities. I couldn’t confirm the veracity of any allegation unless the floor was to crash into my rag doll body.

I had never been as scared as I was at that moment, even with the knowledge of my rotting flesh and my weak bones. Im not scared of death, no. It went deeper than just “death”. My life was, after all, no more than infinite loops of yearning for death and avoiding it. But never fearing _it_ , as death was too inevitable and too erratic for my liking.

I think no one really fears death _per se_ , but what comes before and after. Before death comes to claim us, there is probably nothing but immense pain. And after death… well, it would be exciting to find out about such a mysterious and natural phenomenon. Could I write papers about it after death knocks my door? I guess not.

What I do fear, like lot of people do, are the moments before _it_. Because after death, there’s just death. Nothing. Nichts. Nada. I’m not exactly afraid of pain either, since my auto-destructive nature made me numb to any pain I could ever feel.

The simple idea of dying there made me freak out. Dying where? I looked around.

Nichts.

Or maybe it’s Niente.

I wonder what part of my brain had to die for myself to be in such a disoriented state. My eyes were working however my brain refused to process the images sent in form of nerve impulses. I saw things I did not like at all and because I am stubborn I can’t get these overwhelming ideas out of my head.

The door of the bathroom I was at suddenly opened -100% sure it was a bathroom seeing that it was the dirtiest place I’ve ever been to-. The putrid water reaching the ceiling eventually fled the room, softening its grip on my body that floated like a corpse first week post-mortem after sinking in the ocean. But truth is my collapsed body was yet to reach such levels of decomposition. My flesh was cold but there was no hydrogen, ammonia or methane to save me from submerging. As soon as that door opened, my bones gave up, tired from keeping me on my feet. The potential osteoporosis didn’t wish me good luck so maybe it was a good fall. That I will find out tomorrow once the mental fog goes away.

The purring that made me tremble was dancing throughout the yucky bathroom and making its way to my side. A familiar face close, really close to mine. Sparkling moonlights making me feel just a little bit safer.

—I don’t want to die here —was it a warning or a prayer, the meaning behind my low voice? I still don’t know—. It’s dirty. And there’s this horrid smell.

—Should we go now or do you want to calm down first? —she let out another of her characteristic purrs, a nervous one. I couldn’t blame her for it, I knew very well the hard situation I was putting her in and she was trying her best nevertheless.

—I’m drowning.

—Uh… Let’s call Aoi so we can leave through the back.

At some point that night, scratching four in the morning, alcohol leads me the closest it could to what was the beginning of a night –or early morning- of uninterrupted sleep. My tired eyelids fluttered, tired of all that red. And then I felt levitating again. No, literally.

—Oh, no! Gross… —I groaned but I still snuggled up against such warm embrace—. You smell like cigarettes.

—No shit —snorted the boy, his grasp firm and his arms strong enough to hold me. I heard Tooru’s feline-like laugh from the back, her usual purring following us closely.

I put a hand on the boy’s chest and felt the strap of his bass case. Or bag, or whatever the hell it was that he carries around every time.

The cold night breeze, so sweet and shameless, notified me of our leave. I didn’t want to look behind, and the darkness surrounding me felt familiar and addictive. The contrasting temperatures bring me back to the present and I remembered the hidden –and horrible- bar between the streets of Tokyo that Tooru had invited me to. Aoi’s presence wasn’t surprising at all, holding me tight like a princess while we wait for our Uber to arrive. His nights were nothing more than hours and hours inside a recording studio not too far from our current location, rehearsing and playing with his bandmates. Sleepless nights giving his delicate face some purple eyebags like Tooru’s, like mines.

My eyelashes fluttered like butterflies at the brink of extinction, and the last thing I saw right before falling into the leather seat in between Tooru and Aoi were the fading lights of the city that was slowly going to sleep. Tooru took my hand in hers, with her halfmoon eyes and a glow extinguishing in the heat of an exhausting night. Again, that was enough to make me feel safe.

The hours following were just as terrifying and weird. My feelings like they were about to crawl violently out of my skin. I open my eyes waiting for nothing more than absolute and ear-blowing silence. However the light caressing my face was too bright and the tv next room was too chatty. The sheets felt overly soft to get up voluntarily, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had woken up in my bed, in my bedroom, in my apartment.

I allowed myself to peak around the white walls covered in sticky notes with messy writing and crumbles of midnight insanity, tall bookshelves overflowing with gothic literature and a single picture window gifting me with a sight of the city and the distant movement decent enough to contemplate at lonely nights. All that making a fine set of money wasted that I never get to enjoy myself because of my job.

_I can’t wait to finally move out._

The tart tastes of stomach acids on my mouth are annoying enough to make me try sneaking out of my bed. “Try” because the sheets were clutching onto my waist like a sweet lover who just couldn’t get enough of my company and knowing too well that, once my mind to leave the room, I would never come back. I felt the cold kiss of the early morning weather on the skin of my legs, in complot with my nonexistent girlfriend and just as my feet meet the floor, I regretted it. I stood up too soon, completely forgetting my poor condition of an anemic zombie –Aoi’s words- and then I fell, fast and not making a single sound toward the unrecognizable mess of pillows and mattress. The later not even noticing it. My head spinning and my eyes acting like a broken tv: everything was static.

I was actually confused. Was I always this tiny or had the room grown in size? The lack of furniture was nothing but practic and also one of the reasons I would spend my days and nights at the rented atelier I finished all my deadlines in. Long steps on the wood floor, proceeding to the living room that connects to the kitchen, the only room left besides the bathroom.

A detail shot –or an extreme close-up- of my friend's panties greeted me once I crossed the door frame. Laying face down on the couch, her hair tied in ponytails –now of a flashy blond, almost white and hungry for hair dye- and wearing an oversized shirt matching mine. It was a “gift” from the bassist and his band, a gentle word probably used to hide the needs of free advertisement. Tooru was almost hypnotized, trapped in her ritual of channel surfing, the remote control on her hand and a cup –my cup- of overly sweetened coffee on the other.

—What time is it? —I asked, guessing the answer in my mind.

—Ten in the morning —Aoi’s voice resonates in the kitchen while he makes himself green tea. His broad shoulders looking at me—. Do you want coffee or liquid tooth erosion?

—I feel like losing some tooth today.

I made my way to the couch and the bassist followed once his tea was ready, putting a cold sweating can of liquid death in my hand, better known as “no sugar” energy drink.

Sitting on Tooru’s back with my legs crossed –I don’t know why, but she said she loves it- I was growing more and more exasperated of her never ending change of tv channels.

—Would you please choose something to watch?

—There’s nothing… Oh, oh! Wait —it seems her tv watching superpowers sensed something up her ally because she finally leaves something on. The news.

—I don’t think I can handle reality so early in the morning —Aoi groans.

—It’s fucking ten a.m you loser.

—You’re in huge need of an eldery hanger.

—I think what you have in mind is a walking stick —I say, but my words are a low whisper losing itself in the argument.

—Oh, shut up —Tooru strikes back, not as annoyed as she sounded like—. This is interesting. It was all over twitter some days ago.

I wanted to ask how many days was “some days ago” but for Tooru, “some days ago” could mean two days or a week, or even years as her perception of time wasn’t so linear anymore. It’s not like she lives life mindlessly without a concern about it, at her 26 years of age everything for her was far more complicated than it actually should be. She was caring of time, of the time she had free. Trapped in a deadline loop, she didn’t want to make too much contact with daily matters as to not get distracted from work, and I could understand that a little bit.

Aoi, on the other hand, was a walking calendar. His mind a never resting thinking machine that sometimes would go “boom!” and collapse. Music for him was like a glimpse of a new world, one which includes his masked face, glitzy outfits and a fake –“artistic” as he preferred- name.

—I don’t think I care enough about a dying man —the red haired man states but keeps looking at the tv.

—He’s not a “dying man”, don’t be stupid —Tooru’s brows furrowed—. He’s two weeks dead.

I hear that, and I never lift my gaze from my own canned death.

—How’s that any different? —I ask, genuinely curious about her strange pyramid of priorities.

—One is less interesting than the other.

—That’s messed up —said Aoi, making me laugh just a tiny bit.

—So was this dude, see if I care.

Then, Tooru rambled and babbled about a man’s death in almost vivid detail, just as every time she’d find an “interesting” murder case. The news lady’s voice sounding certainly lower compared to my cute friend’s enthusiasm. But I didn’t flinch at her roller-coaster tones, going up and down with fervor, neither did Aoi. We were used to her wholly after years and years of friendship.

And right after that, Tooru’s ebullience filling my living room like a poisonous gas, I take the first step in my new path to inevitable decadence. I did the one thing I never do when dead bodies find their way into our mildly appealing conversations: I lifted up my gaze.

To the tv and then to my friend’s phone.

To the undeniably dead man.

And I saw, almost like Tooru had borrowed me her bloody damned eyes, the difference she so much joked about, the difference between a dying man and a dead man. A long since dead one.

The supossedly messed up man was hanging, his body lightly swarming from side to side with the merciful push of the wind. His hands nailed to both sides of a wooden cross, bigger than his own body. His torso uncovered but, at the same time, covered in… blood. So much blood, and his skin was but a pale rainbow. Head hanging, no more strength to lift it. But I needn’t a face to recognize that wicked man murdered in a wicked “process”.

My can slipped from my fingers as I felt like it was really death, creeping slowly and unnoticed to my burn throat.

The floor wet and my brain fried, I felt like dying once again.

—I saw that man —I said, my voice quivering and heart racing even thought I was so, so sure I was dying—. In my dreams.

Aoi and Tooru could only look at me. There wasn’t any other option available. Trying to decipher if it was but another of my breakdowns, and all I needed was to calm down and regain consciousness of my whereabouts. Or if it was something worse, something way darker than a slip of sanity, something not even they could manage.

—And I painted him —the information running away from me, from my mouth—. I painted him and i… I-

I know what I did.

I saved it.

I painted an upcoming death, and I couldn’t get myself to sell it. Morbid obsession disguised as art.

—I saved it.

The painting of a dead man, painted in vivid detail in a perfect mix of dreamless nights and dark frustration, stored now in the back of my atelier.

And my thoughts, rebellious as always, yelled at me.

_You’re going to die._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, Nana here. Just wanted to clarify some things: 1) as you may notice, i play around with punctuation, as i dont use simple quotes or double quotes for dialogues. I use what i believe its called m dash. In spanish literature and books in general we dont use quotes when writting dialogues, we use m dash. 2) Don't mind the weird descriptions, i use a lot of metaphors, analogies and allegories to represent the protagonist's feelings. So when she said "The putrid water reaching the ceiling eventually fled the room, softening its grip on my body that floated like a corpse first week post-mortem after sinking in the ocean. But truth is my collapsed body was yet to reach such levels of decomposition. My flesh was cold but there was no hydrogen, ammonia or methane to save me from submerging." that means she felt really overwhelmed and her body eventually fell to the ground. Also, im really into chemistry, biology and forensic medicine so yeah there will be even more reference to that.  
> Im not writting this fanfic expecting someone to read it besides my best friend, but if there's someone out there reading, thank you! i hope you enjoy reading this as much as i enjoy writting it.


	3. dos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: descriptions of blood and death. Mention of self-harm (it's not detailed, its just hinted but i thought i should add it here anyway)

I’m alone with my thoughts. My mind going berserk.

I was sitting in the middle of the room, long after my friends had to leave. I told them about my dreams once I’d calmed down. It took time though, but there was no turning back. Even if showing my sketches felt too personal, I still did it. I handled them my sketchbook and my notebook to discuss that the possibilities of me going through a new level of insanity weren’t as high as they thought.

I didn’t really want to show them that. Even if they’re my friends, as I said, it was too personal. It was a morbid secret I would’ve had took to the grave with me. But they were worried, and certainly I was worried too.

I needed someone to tell me I’m not crazy. Someone to confirm they see the same dead man, bleeding thru the same spots, decomposing in the exact same position.

But afternoon arrives, and we all come to the conclusion that there are simply too many things to do. Too much _life_ to take care of. And we part our ways, with the promise we will continue tomorrow first thing in the morning.

The floor feels cold but my skin is long since dead and doesn’t mind.

And I’m left alone with my thoughts.

Thinking.

_Think_

_Think_

_Think_

_I have to think._

_I have to remember._

But what is there to remember? That’s all I can remember, and I still can’t understand it.

_Something is missing._

Of course there is. Everything in these dreams was as vivid as watching life with my two eyes: tiny details were, yes, in fact, vivid. But the rest, the important things, were blurry. I could never see the face of the killer, the one summoning me every damn time. The dream realms were the only place I could never see names, or streets, or hints to my whereabouts. While it never mattered to me, because I am in fact too entangled in my own reality to mind the randomness of people peeking into my life by mistake, I think it’s about time to pay more attention to my surroundings. Not only in my dreams, but in real life too.

Sometimes I forget there’s more to life than me, myself and my job. But thinking about that fact was too scary.

Maybe I just don’t want to.

These dreams were as scary as reality, and now they’re slowly creeping above my pillow. My wicked, wicked imagination blurring the lines between fantasy and real life.

Best case scenario, I was losing my mind. Worst case scenario? The corpses are crawling from the prison that is my head.

And they’re leaving me inside.

But again, _there was something about all this…_ Even if I try to pretend I can’t see it, even if I rip out my eyes, it’s right in front of me. I can’t pretend like I didn’t notice the way she acts. The way her bloody fingers grazed the body.

There was something _artistic_ about it.

She was moving in a way only _I_ can notice. She wanted me, or anyone, to notice.

The bucked of blood was like acrilics, the dead man was like a white canvas. She carved his eyes to keep him from seeing, and she nailed his hands, but only his hands, which was weird because the body could rot and then fall to the ground. And there was so much blood, but the only visible cut was the one she was making in his torso.

Did I just compare a dead man to a canvas? 

_OH._

But _there was so much blood_ …

The dubious forums Tooru liked so much said the corpse was two weeks dead until the family found it and called the police.

A corpse starts decomposing the moment it dies. Even if the decomposition of a human body can be slowered down, there are several stages to it that will always happen: first hours post mortem, algor mortis grazes all over the body with its deathly cold breath. Rigor mortis kicks in and takes possession of the muscles. Meanwhile, livor mortis leads the blood the closer it can to the ground. The human then begins to lose all its charm and freshness, the body starts to bloat and the cells die in the name of autolysis. Ahead from the fresh stage, what comes is more bloating, gasses producing a putrid smell, and the body going through all the colors of the rainbow. Then comes the advanced decay: teeth, nails and hair start to fall out, and the body begins to rot into a skeleton.

What was the point of spending so much effort into something that will rot away no matter how hard you try?

_What was the point?_

_What hides behind your macabre demeanor?_

_I have to see it._

I get up from the floor once the clock ticks 17:00 p.m and I walk to my closet. I made a promise of staying home calm and quiet until tomorrow, but I cannot keep it. I have to see it. So I change into black denim and one of Aoi’s hoodies hoping his sixth sense won’t catch me sneaking.

The thick fabric sliding down my naked chest, I was ready to grab my keys when I saw it.

I saw _it_.

It was so fast I don’t recall what _it_ was, but it was enough to linger in my mind and make me doubt my next move.

Sunlight collapsing with it, pushing it even harder to the ground. The wind absorbing every page of it.

A notebook.

Falling from the sky.

In a second, the spell around us, keeping time in a halt, eventually broke. I ran to the window, my hands touching the glass and leaving traces of my troubled emotions.

My eyes to the streets but my floor was too high and the notebook got lost in the endless bast of cars and buildings.

This was the third inexplicable happening that day. Something lurking from the back that I shouldn’t have witnessed.

My body bubbly in the air when I make my way to the door. I curse under my breath when I remember I’m on the 11th floor and there’s no way in hell I’m getting in that damned iron box. Not at this hours, not so sober.

I look at the stairs, and I run for it. It’s a bad idea, as my legs had forgotten the meaning of physical activity and my lungs wanted to kill me. My heart rate never, in my 25 years of living, went over 65 per minute but at that moment I was worried it would beat so fast it may stop forever.

11 floors down, I start to wonder if I actually saw something to make such a fuss about it. Or if I did see something, was it really worth the rush?

When I finally leave the building, I feel like a bag of broken bones thrown into the streets of Tokyo to eventually turn into dust.

I try to be as positive as I can. If there was something falling from the sky in the middle of the day, then it must have fallen some blocks from my studio. If it’s all on my mind, and there’s nothing there, then I can go on with my life and pretend it never happened.

I find myself wishing it’s nothing more than a slip of my brain. Things like this happen. The sunlight and the shadows are competitive and will try to win in a game were I’m the only one losing. I think I see something from the corner of my eyes, but what I’m really spotting is the boredom of nature.

Even wishing there isn’t a new concern added in my list of worries, I remain alert, observant, ready to find _something_. Whatever it was. I flinch at every person passing by, and my eyes are open to see someone, anyone, finding that notebook before me. But of course, if someone was to take it first, I don’t think I would mind.

_Would I?_

Sadly, I’m not tall enough to see over the businessman’s heads walking in front of me. There shouldn’t be so many people out; it’s still not that late.

_At this point I’m never going to find it._

I wait at the side hoping for the crowd of students and workers to slowly dissipate, my back to a 24hs store wall, but that never happens.

And then, when I was ready to give up, I see it. Right in the middle of the street, people not caring enough to see it because their eyes are almost glued to their phone screens. It’s not too far, and if I fasten my pace and forget etiquette –read: push anyone who dares to cross my path- then I could make it before the lights turn green.

_Then what?_

_All this for a stupid notebook?_

_No,_ I say to myself, _a stupid notebook that fell from the sky._

I walk as fast as I can without running. I heard angry groans and even curses, I feel the annoyed stare of high school students, but I keep going.

And then, we are looking at each other. The sun going back to sleep tired of watching me struggle for no reason. 

My watch marks 18:35 p.m.

At 18:36 p.m, the black notebook is in my hands. My fingers brushing the front cover, lightly and scared. I don’t realize it but I’m trembling. I’m scared; scared this might _poof!_ and vanish in my face.

I caress the white writing, the black leather, my hands shaking in a mix of skepticism and fear. 

_“Death Note”_

_I ran through 11 floors just to be scammed._

* * *

It’s dark outside when I’m between the comforting walls of my art studio.

I’m just sitting there, staring at the newly found “Death Note”. 

An hour passes by like the wind when I decide I should leave that for later and get back on track, I had too many commissions to finish and not so much time.

I move around my studio, changing into the usual old shirt to work. I usually avoid wearing any clothes I don’t want to fuck up, so I have my working outfit in the studio. But today I was too lazy to put on the pants, and so that bad habit of leg-exposed and loose clothing-painting arose again.

The screaming voices of those morbid paintings and that mysterious book were so loud I tried to put on some music, but the noises were nothing more than an annoying representation of my own curiosity and fear so the music did little to bury it.

Even when I tried to force myself to finish that stupid commission, my mother’s words popped up in my mind:

“There’s no use for a stormy mind if you can’t make your hands work” she would mutter at herself those hard years before leaving.

I had so many ideas, and this piece was almost done with but it was taking all of me to finish it. But I had to keep going.

Two years ago, every day was like my hands were rotten.

I’ve been in the art world since I was born. My parents had an established career even before planning their first and only child, me. Mom was a contemporary painter under the care of a peculiar Chilean gallery. Born, raised and living most of her life in Chile, I still wonder how she met my dad. Born, raised and living most of his life in Japan, he was –mostly- a sculptor and photographer on the side, a lovely hobby of his. My mother confessed later on, when I was old enough to know some of their little not-so-professional secrets, that she had no intention of leaving her country to stablish somewhere else. She was probably thinking “my life is here, art is here”, and the only time she would get in an airplane was to visit some art fairs, gallery exhibits she was really interest in or museums. But they found themselves at a place they weren’t supposed to be, in a country unrelated to them. They shared gazes –my mum’s words- at the Benito Quinquela Martin museum, located in La Boca, Buenos Aires. She said the Amanecer en primavera was the only witness of their curious peeking and she became as blushy as the sky in the painting when my dad approached her.

My mum was merely visiting her sisters, who had recently moved to Argentina. My dad was really into Latin American art. And the rest is but a series of coffee dates, letters, and never ending goodbyes.

When I was a child tho, I was too immersed in art to mind about their love stories. I don’t know if the stick was too high or if I simply fell in love with painting, but growing up I never really cared about the socialities of love and friendship. It’s not that I did not want friends, or that I did not dream about a special one. My mind was so captivated by art that everything else merged with the background, and eventually I stopped pursuing close relationships all together, only making an effort to keep those in the art field.

The only exceptions were Tooru and Aoi, I suspect that’s mainly because of our different but similar passions. People who do not have the same goals and priorities tend to get mad or upset when their friends don’t have the time to hang out or give them the attention they want. I was okay with that. The girls approaching me out of curiosity in high school quickly stopped talking to me. It’s hard to maintain a relationship with someone that simply can’t, so it didn’t affect me. I knew I didn’t just want to make money with my art, but to live off art. And for that, art had to become the main point in my life. It takes hours of effort and learning, painting is time consuming but I was ready.

I met Tooru and Aoi at my last year of high school. Tooru was running away from someone I still don’t know, and Aoi was running away from himself. We were kids with a goal in mind, and so we eventually stuck together. We had our priorities, and we respected it, we understood the lengths we had to go. Sometimes we wouldn’t talk for days, and sometimes we would hang out at the other’s place in complete silence, offering the company of staying there while working.

By the time we met, I was already well-known in the art world. My first solo exhibition was at the age of twelve, at fifteen I had nice polished portfolio and finally, turning seventeen, a gallery I really liked offered to represent me.

But suddenly I was an adult navigating into the unknown world of my own delusions. First was mom’s death, and then dad cold hand letting go of mine to pursue solitude good enough for him to mourn.

And before you know it, you are cancelling all your therapy sessions and desperately punching the wall because you had all those ideas, but none could be captured on canvas.

The pressure to succeed on my career and my duties as a daughter was far more than I could handle.

But then some sort of deity must have felt sorry for me, because I started having those dreams. And as traumatic as the first one was, descending into the deeps of my own mind –my dreams used to be as black as my eyes- gave me the motivation I needed to slowly paint again. 

I thought it was the second time a deity interfered in my life, but these recent discoveries make me believe I was simply cursed since birth.

It makes the guilt resting on my shoulders even heavier.

_I wonder what this so-called Death Note has to do with this mess._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this while listening to ロキ on loop. I think if i had to choose songs that represent my characters so far, i would say: Airhead (produced by Picon but i loove KANKAN's cover) for the protagonist whose name i wont reveal just yet  
> I'm getting on the bus to the other world, see ya! (by the amazing band Tuyu who i strongly recommend) for Tooru  
> and lastly Dramaturgy (By Eve, he's just insanely amazing) for Aoi.  
> Just a thought.


End file.
